Simmons annoys me with his "all things Boston" slant, but there is no doubt he can be funny as hell. This was IMO his best piece ever. I knew he was going to bust Isiah's balls after the Francis trade...but I did not expect this. Great stuff.

Simmons: Jim Paxson, let's start with you. Last February, you traded a 2007 first-round pick to Boston for Jiri Welsch. Four months later, after you were fired by the Cavs, they traded Welsch to Milwaukee for a 2006 second round pick. To my knowledge, that's never happened before. Walk us through that.

Paxson: Absolutely. When you're making a bad trade, there are some inherent elements that need to be there. First, are you putting your own short-term interests ahead of the long-term interests of the team? With the Welsch trade, there were rumors I might get fired, and we needed another body to make the playoffs … really, why would I care about protecting future No. 1 picks if I was probably getting canned?

McHale: Hear hear! I don't think we have a first-round pick until 2017. And I might trade that one this week.

Paxson: See, Kevin knows what I'm talking about here. The second element: Are you rolling the dice with someone with "potential," who has never contributed to a winning team? Jiri had bounced around the league and couldn't even crack Doc Rivers' regular rotation -- and Doc uses 11 guys a night. So that was in place. Third, and most important, are your fans going to be outraged when they hear about the trade and say things like, "What the hell?" and "How can we stop this guy, he's a menace?" That was there, too. And that's what made the trade so appealing. It's not often you can trade for someone who's worth half as much four months later.

Along those same lines, we aren't just trying to upset our fans, we're trying to confuse them. For instance, three years ago, I gave Kevin Ollie $15 million over five years. Now, he's a below-average guard with no real skills -- if you rated a point guard in eight different categories, he's probably a C-minus or below in each of them. If you're a Cavs fan, how are you supposed to react to that contract? Complete confusion, right? Well, those are good reactions. At least your fans are discussing the team. If the fans are talking about you, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, at least they're talking.